Bonds, Sosa, and Clemens are the headliners....needed a shower after seeing their filthy names.

Biggio, Piazza, and Schilling on for the first time.

Bagwell, Jack Morris and Tim Raines are making another run at it...as are McGwire and Palmeiro.

Who gets voted in??

I am not an expert at this by any means, but I could potentially see Piazza as being the only one who makes the cut this time. As an Astros fan, I'd love to see Biggio and Bagwell get in, but I just don't see it yet.

As a Hall watcher, this is probably the most important ballot in BBWAA history. I'm genuinely curious how they are going to treat Clemens and Bonds, who are no question about it, inner circle Hall of Famers from a performance standpoint. Any vote they do not get is a voter who literally will not vote for any "steroid" player. It is an automatic disqualification for those voters. Because there is simply no way to deny them entry based on performance.

I think Bonds and Clemens will get between 40-50% of the vote.

I also feel that our recent run of borderline candidates getting in is the old guard's last stand. The BBWAA skews older, and they hate the new sabermetrically inclined writers. I think the statistical cases for Raines and Blyleven actually hurt their candidacies, and the poor statistical case actually helped Perez and Dwason get in, and will help Morris get in.

I think Morris and Piazza get in. Maybe Biggio. But there is no way a "steroid candidate" gets in until Bonds does. He's the guy. You cannot let in a guy with a steroid taint and keep out Bonds and have any hope of legitimacy.

This is the most loaded ballot of my lifetime. Two of the greatest players who ever lived, the greatest hitting catcher in history, the second or third best leadoff hitter ever, a top 10 1st baseman, and one of the best "rate" players ever in Biggio.

Oh, and I have a better chance of getting elected to Cooperstown than Sosa.

quote:This will be my third year voting. In my first year, I mustered up a mighty wave of self righteousness and decided that no player I suspected of using PEDs would get my vote. I'll show them.

Last year I moved my line and decided that unless there was some kind of tangible connection to PEDs, I would consider voting for a player. I changed because of Jeff Bagwell, a guy who sure looked the part of a drug user but was never linked to it. It seemed unfair to exclude him based only on suspicion.

Now I've decided to erase the line completely.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and the rest of the scoundrels will get my vote. I'll look at the players based on their statistical merit, how they compared to other players of their era and to other players in the Hall of Fame. I won't sit at my desk and do Google searches to decide who is clean and who was cheating.

quote:didn't think he was, but I thought that was who Baloo was referring to with the "no way a steroid candidate gets in before bonds" quote.

I wasn't referring to anyone specific. We're about to see an entire generation of players excluded under suspicion of drug use because you can't really let anyone in until Bonds and Clemens are in and have a claim at legitimacy.

The voters can't put in Bagwell or McGwire until Bonds is in there, because otherwise, it'll just look silly. But once Bonds is in, the stigma will likely have eroded and they'll be a general vibe of the horse's nose is under the tent and hell, everyone was doing it, and we can't keep out every single player from that era. So the standard will slowly erode away.

ETA: Though I think there will always be a "not on the first ballot" punishment for steroid era players. Which is silly, but oh well.

Raines would already be in the Hall if Rickey Henderson didn't exist. It's just that Rickey was so awesome, people didn't appreciate that Raines was possibly the second best leadoff hitter in history. Oh, he also a coke problem in the 80s.